On Aug. 25, Massachusetts Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy passed
away at the age of 77 after battling a malignant glioma, leaving our nation to
celebrate his accomplishments and wonder how his passing will affect Congress'
current healthcare reform proposals.

Kennedy considered healthcare reform "the cause" of his
life, fighting for universal, comprehensive coverage for all Americans at least
15 times throughout his 47 years in the U.S. Senate. Even while undergoing
cancer treatments in recent years, he worked closely with the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee to pass a healthcare reform bill
this year.

Whether consensus on meaningful healthcare reform can be
reached in Washington by year's end remains to be seen, and the pharma and
biotech markets have been operating under the same uncertainty for months as it
is unclear how such a proposal would impact those industries. At the crux of
this contentious debate is whether access to affordable, effective healthcare
services should be considered a right, not a privilege, for all Americans.

Aside from his own recent experience, Kennedy had a very
personal perspective on this noble idea. In 1941, his sister Rosemary Kennedy
underwent a lobotomy that mentally incapacitated her for the rest of her life.
In 1961, his father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., suffered a major stroke, losing the
power of speech and suffering paralysis on his right side. In 1973, Kennedy's
son Edward Kennedy Jr., was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma and had his leg
amputated. Kennedy was also said to nurse his other son, Patrick J. Kennedy,
who suffered from severe asthma attacks as a child. And his brother-in-law,
Sargent Shriver, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003.

The Kennedy clan likely had access to the best medical care
available, and the senator received health insurance coverage through the
Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program, but his experiences made him
keenly aware that America's health care system is marred by deep inequality.
Observing in a speech before the Montgomery County Democratic Committee that
his son's cancer treatments where covered by his government-sponsored
insurance, while other families whose children had the same condition were
forced to sell their homes to pay for only a few months of treatments, Kennedy
said:

"I knew that my child was going to have the best because I had the health
insurance of the United States Senate. And I knew that no one, no parent, no
parent in that hospital had the kind of coverage that I had. That kind of
choice, for any parent in this country is absolutely unacceptable and wrong, my
friends."

In the course of our reporting on pharma and biotech
business deals, ddn's editorial team
often asks companies how they will ultimately measure the success of their
acquisition, merger, partnership or collaboration. No matter the size or niche
of the company, the answer is always the same: to provide effective new
medicines for patients, to address unmet medical needs, to improve the quality
of life for patients suffering from "insert disease name here." These are
gallant goals, but with millions of Americans without or in danger of losing
their health insurance, the almost boiler-plate verbiage begs the question:
What good are these efforts if only a limited number of patients have access to
them?

In his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in
1980, Kennedy often paraphrased Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping By Woods on a
Snowy Evening," at the conclusion of every stump speech to indicate that he had
to go on to another political event: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, and
I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before
I sleep." Kennedy's remarkable journey has come to an end, and as he finally
rests in peace, it is now up to American lawmakers to decide the fate of his
vision for healthcare reform. Whatever argument you favor, we must all play an
active role in the crafting of this legislation if we expect to truly succeed
in achieving better patient outcomes. There is far too much at stake to remain
silent in this debate.